like master, like man

Man here is in the sense of ‘servant’. The female equivalent is like mistress like maid. Cf. PETRONIUS Satyricon lviii. qualis dominus, talis et servus, as is the master, so is the servant; early 14th-cent. Fr. lon dit a tel seigneur tel varlet, it is said, for such a lord such a manservant.

1530 J. PALSGRAVE L’éclaircissement de la Langue Française 120^v Suche maystre suche man.

1538 T. ELYOT Dict. s.v. Similes, A lewde [foolish] servaunt with an yll master... Lyke master lyke man.

1620 T. SHELTON tr. Cervantes’ Don Quixote II. X. The Prouerbe be true that sayes, ‘like master, like man’, and I may add, ‘like lady, like maid’. Lady Hercules was fine, but her maid was still finer.

1979 M. G. EBERHART Bayou Road iv. ‘Like master, like man,’ Marcy’s father had said bitterly..of the disappearance of an entire set of Dresden plates.

1990 ‘C. AIRD’ Body Politic (1991) xii. 131 ‘I’m sorry,’ said Miss Finch, ‘but she just doesn’t like men.’ Like mistress, like maid, was what Sloan’s grandmother would have said to that, but Sloan himself, wise in his own generation, kept silent.